And that can't be said of any other alternative fuel except for a tiny number of home natural-gas fueling stations, each of which requires an electric compressor to get the gas into the car's high-pressure storage tanks.

You can see the full and most-up-to-date DoE table, broken down by state, here, along with an explanation of its methodology. Note that stations for some fuels--natural gas, for instance--are clustered in just a few states (as are charging stations at the moment).

Electric wins, hydrogen loses

InsideEVs.com, which reproduced the table, uses the data to crow about the number of electric-car charging points far outpacing hydrogen stations--of which there are just 56 at the moment.

And that total may be falling. Several hydrogen fueling stations operated by Shell over the last few years have now been shut down, including those in White Plains, New York, and Culver City, California.

But electric-car owners can take heart at the rapid growth of public charging infrastructure.

While charging station uptime varies among the confusing array of multiple networks with incompatible payment and membership systems, those stations are arriving at a far faster clip than stations for any other type of fuel.

Among other things, an electric-car charging station turns out to be far easier to permit and install--requiring less real estate and no volatile fuel storage tanks--than any other type of alt-fuel.

There really are some significant differences between charging stations and gasoline fueling stations. EV charging stations are more like a parking space with an added service whereas gasoline pumps are more like the liquor store where you stop by briefly to pick up supplies.

Iam
Posted: 5/23/2012 3:13pm PDT

That Electric 10,000 stations number is misleading..

Stations with Lever 2 EV chargers
cannot be considered as
alternative fueling stations but
must be renamed to snail fueling stations!

Waiting ~6 hours to charge your EV for ~80 miles
is snail fueling, and cannot be in the same category as
Autogas (Propane), Ethanol, Compressed Natural Gas,
Biodiesel, Hydrogen, Liquefied Natural Gas.

The alternative fueling stations above (except electric)
are fast fueling stations and i doubt that
it takes more than 20 minutes to fill a car at any of them.

Therefore Lever 1 and 2 EV charging stations must be deleted from this list.

The only EV charging stations that are in the same category of the fast alternative fueling stations above are the

Iam
Posted: 5/23/2012 3:16pm PDT

Level 3 DC fast charging stations.

Only those are in the same category as
fast alternative fueling stations
because it takes around ~20 minutes
to charge an EV at a DC fast charging station.

Although right now there are around 39
DC fast charging stations in the US
according to Blink..

http://www.blinknetwork.com/locator.html

(on top right of map click "Layers" and untick L2)

..Nissan is looking to sell as many as 2,000 DC fast charging stations within the next two years in the US, each costing $9,900 that can be easily installed and adopts the CHAdeMO protocol.

And because Nissan DC fast chargers are so cheap we can expect faster depdeployment than other alternative fueling stations.

ff

kidmarc
Posted: 5/24/2012 1:42am PDT

The Spin Doctor is at it again. 'There are a few caveats, but let's not bother with those..."

1. A charging station is equal to a gas pump, not the filling station. [ignore]

2. Logistically you need more charging stations because charge time is minimum 3x - 4x the fill time of other fuels. [ignore]

3. Shell H2 stations that were closed were TEST stations. What do you do when the test is over? [ignore]

4. Public charging-station number doesn't include private charging stations... Well DUH!!! [Doh!]